This Is Where the World Ends (3 page)

She likes rain and British actors and balloons, and though I can't get her the first two, I am going to fill her yard with the third.

So that's what we do, Micah and I. We sit in the back of his car and fill balloons, and I see us as a photograph, snapped through the back window, zoomed out, long exposure. I don't tell him that Caleb Matthers is the real reason we are really here, that he is cheating on Carrie and I know because Suey Park was wearing his boxers and
I saw them while we were changing for gym.

Caleb is allergic to latex—not, like,
deathly
, but he'll definitely break out in hives. Everywhere
.
Mwahahaha.

Like I said, the world isn't always fair, and sometimes we have to help it along. Bad things should happen to bad people, but I leave out the details with Micah. I love him more than anything, but our soul is so strained right now that it doesn't make sense to pull it even tauter with unnecessary detail.

It's easier like this, just to be us. It's easier like this to see how beautiful the earth and life and we are. We are stars and the purple-red-blue sky is the background. We are streamers and ribbons tied to trees and balloons that dance in the wind. We are shadows, the too-sharp angle of his nose and the frizzy strands of hair falling into my face. We breathe in the helium and sing show tunes to each other in unrecognizable voices.

“Janie,” he says as we finish up, “I missed you too.”

There is nothing special about Waldo. It is a shitty town in the middle of a shitty state. There's snow for most of the year and corn when there's not. No one ever comes. No one ever leaves.

It is known for having the deepest quarry in Iowa.

It is known for having a nationally ranked wrestling team.

It is known for Janie Vivian.

They take turns telling me. Dewey, the nurses, the doctor, even my dad when he visits for a few minutes between his shifts.

My brain is liquid. They press and press information, but my brain is liquid. They touch the surface and it ripples and then it goes blank again. This is the most frustrating part. I feel it when my brain goes blank, until I forget that too.

What I remember, what they tell me enough times, is this:

There was a party.

There was a bonfire, and it got out of control.

Janie's house burned down.

There were a lot of people at her house when it burned down, because there was a party.

But Janie wasn't one of them.

They don't tell me where she was, though, or where she is.

Or maybe they do.

I don't know.

I sleep a lot. Dewey is usually there when I wake up. He's the one who tells me that my dad is working another shift to pay for the hospital. He's the one who tells me the most about the fire. He must be. He's always there. For a characteristically shitty friend, he's suddenly very dependable. It must be because of the Xbox.

“What happened to Janie?” I ask him. It's a Saturday. I think. I've been in the hospital for a week. My head has stopped hurting enough that I can eat solid food again.

Dewey was leaning forward to shoot, but he flinches and misses. “What?”

“I said, what happened—”

“I heard you,” he says, and pauses the game. “You asked what happened.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“You've never asked that before.”

I reply to the ceiling. It is almost white, almost smooth, almost more interesting than the video game Dewey has been playing on repeat because he beat all the levels two days ago. “So answer the goddamn question.”

He stares at me. I don't think Dewey has ever really looked at me before. “Usually you just ask where she is.”

Where. Where is Janie Vivian. The world tilts; I might fall off the bed. I've stopped puking, but I might start again. I might. “She's gone, isn't she?”

Dewey doesn't say anything.

“So what happened? Where'd she go?”

For a moment it seems like he might tell me the truth; I look at him and he looks at me. His eyes are almost black. Then he looks away and says, “She went away.”

“But where?”

“She—she's doing a volunteer trip. In Nepal.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“But why? Why Nepal?”

He shrugs. “She just couldn't be in Waldo anymore, I guess.”

“But why didn't she stay and tell me?” The pain is growing. The pain is growing larger.

Dewey meets my eyes again. His eyes are almost black, but not quite. But no, Dewey's eyes are blue. They've always been blue.

But for a moment I thought they were black, the pupils so big that they eclipsed the iris.

The world is nearly sideways.

Dewey presses play again.

The doctor comes later to ask if I'm ready to go.

“Where?” I ask him.

He's balding; his chest hair puffs out from the top of his coat. I don't remember his name yet. He always keeps one hand in his pocket and never stops clicking his pen.

“Home, Micah,” he says. His smile is wide and false. “You get to go home.”

He checks my head and asks me about my new glasses. I remember that these glasses are new, but not what happened to the old ones. He tells me that I'm doing just fine, and leaves.

Dewey watches the door close. “He's told you that every time.”

“Told me what?”

He sighs. “That you're leaving tomorrow, dumbass.”

“Oh,” I say, and try to remember that. “Okay. But I don't remember how many times he's come.”

Dewey snorts and goes back to Metatron. “That's what he said.”

On Sunday, Dewey packs up the Xbox.

On Sunday, I am finally allowed to wear normal clothes again. My dad brought them last night, but I was asleep, or I forgot he was here.

On Sunday, the police come.

There are two of them. One is fat and one is less fat. They introduce themselves, but they only do it once, and I forget their names as soon as they say them.

One sits and one stands. They ask Dewey to leave, and he doesn't. His fingers twitch for a cigarette and he remains sitting, so one of the police officers has to stand. He glares at them and asks them why the hell they're here.

“We've talked to everyone from the fire,” says the less fat one, who is sitting. “It's just procedure, nothing to worry about.”

“He's completely fu—I mean, he's messed up in the head,” Dewey says. His hand keeps going to his pocket for a cigarette and coming back empty. “You can't talk to him like this. There's no way this is okay.”

“The doctors cleared him,” says the fatter one. His voice is low and firm. “It's just a few standard questions, Jonathan.”

“That's not my name,” Dewey snaps, though it is.

“Dewey, just go,” I say. They're hurting my head.

He glares at me. “Shut up, Micah. You don't know what you're saying.”

“I know what I'm saying,” I say, slowly, so it's not a lie. “I want you to go.”

He glares at me for another second, and then stalks out of the room. He has his phone in his hand and he's dialing. I think I hear him say my dad's name before he slams the door behind him.

There's a beat of silence. Then the fatter one says, “How are you feeling, Micah?”

“Not great.”

That's probably the best answer I give them. They keep asking questions. If I want water. What I knew about the quarry. Why I was there so often. If I always went with Janie. If she was ever sad. If she ever cried. How well I knew her.

“Better than anyone,” I tell them.

The less fat one pulls out a notepad. “Is that right, son?”

He doesn't believe me.

“Better than anyone,” I repeat.

The fatter one watches me. “Are you sure about that, Micah? We've talked to just about the entire school, and I don't think anyone would back you up on that.”

“Better than anyone.”

“They all say that no one ever saw the two of you interact. Ever.”

That's true. I remember that. We decided that in middle school. Before that, maybe. I can't really remember, but not because of my head injury. It's just been a long time.

I have been trying to figure it all out while staring at the ceiling, but it's hard because I'm still forgetting. I forget that my dad is working three shifts now to pay for the hospital bills and that's why he's never here. I forget that I am eighteen now. I forget that it's November. I keep trying and trying to remember, but all I can think of is Janie closing her door with her fingertips and the wind from the window and how that was really it.

“It was easier,” I tell the policemen.

The less fat detective writes something down. “Why's that?”

I shrug. Shrugging doesn't uncover my ass anymore, because I have a real shirt now. Hah. “You said you talked to everyone at school. Can't you figure it out?”

They watch me. I watch them back. Neither of them have answers.

“What happened?” I ask them.

They don't answer. They just keep asking questions. About that night. About what happened before the bonfire. If I was with her. If I knew she was planning a bonfire. If I know why there was another fire by the quarry. If I
drank that night. If I knew beforehand that her parents would be out of town that weekend.

I don't know why they're talking to me at all.

I don't remember.

“Her parents,” I repeat when they ask me about them. “Her parents don't like me.”

“Why's that?” the less fat one asks again.

“They just don't. Janie's parents. She didn't like them, did you know that? Have you talked to them?”

They nod. Their lips are tight and they do not speak more than they have to. I don't like them. I don't like either of them, but they are going to find out what happened. Because Janie is gone. Janie Vivian is gone.

I repeat this to myself, in my head and out loud, and try to keep breathing as the world keeps tilting sideways. We are nearly upside down.

“Do you know why she went?” I ask them. “Why did she go to Nepal?”

“What?” the less fat one says.

“That's right,” the fatter one says. He's giving the other one a look like a warning. “Nepal.”

“Why's she there?”

They look at each other, the policemen.

“Why'd her parents let her? They would never let her. What about school?” School. “She's doing her senior project
on fairy tales.” Out loud, deliberate. Sudden, because that's how the memory comes and goes. Papers by the Metaphor, my voice and hers. Feathers. Scissors. Senior projects. We are seniors, because Janie moved the day before senior year. Her hands with chipping nails, her voice laughing because. Because her parents wanted her to do her project on American economics. Her eyes were pale that day. Her hair was everywhere.

Fairy-tale miracles. And I chose religious apocalypses.

She had laughed when I told her, because we didn't even plan this. We balance the world, accidentally.

And now it's tilting. It's tilting and tilting.

I look up, or down, maybe. The policemen are still watching.

“Her parents are crazy,” I say. “They got half the library banned. Did you know that? Sophomore year, I remember all of that. Janie wanted to read
Mrs. Dalloway,
and Virginia Woolf was a lesbian. And they didn't want Janie to become a lesbian. Her uncle's on the school board, and her parents made him ban half the library.”

“I remember that,” says the less fat one. “A few years ago, right?”

“Sophomore year,” I say. “And she crawled into my room one night and we took my dad's car and went to Goodwill. We bought books—she had a list of banned books. She
left them in the trunk and the next morning we went to school early and she set up a library in her locker.”

I don't tell them how she made me tie a black T-shirt around my face like a ninja mask. I don't tell them how I didn't do much more than watch her. I don't tell them how she looked, her hair falling out onto her shoulders and freckles sharp. I don't tell them how I loved her, how I loved her apocalyptically. I don't tell them how she stole her dad's credit card, or how she took his favorite book from his bedside and burned it while I watched.

It's a good snapshot of us. Representative. Janie, furious and full of ideas. Me, following.

“You drove to Goodwill as sophomores?” asks the police officer.

“Janie drove,” I say. “Janie had her permit.”

“Right,” the fatter one says. He is cautious now, slow. I am talking too fast, using my hands too much. I take a breath while he says, “That's right. It's all right.”

The less fat one keeps scribbling.

I might be getting her into trouble.

“Don't tell anyone,” I say to them. “Especially not her parents. Especially not her dad. Janie and her dad don't like each other. Does he know about Nepal? He would never let her go to Nepal.”

They still do not look at me.

“Who else have you talked to?” I ask them.

The less fat one narrows his eyes. “Just about the whole school, kid.”

“The whole school?” That's a lot of people. “Huh.”

“But we'd like to talk to you again in particular, Micah,” says the bigger one. “And a couple more people too.”

“Who?”

“Some of Janie's friends. Piper. Wes, Ander.” He watches me too closely. “Did you know them?”

“Not really,” I tell them. “Janie likes Ander, so I hate him on principle.”

“I should hope she likes him,” the bigger one says. He's trying to smile, he's trying to lighten the mood, but we're in a fucking hospital and my head is broken. “They were—they are dating.”

“Are they?” No one told me that. Or maybe they did. I shouldn't be surprised. So they're dating—Janie always gets her way.

They do not ask me why I hate Ander on principle, but it's because I am in love with her and always have been. Maybe I already told them. I don't know.

My head hurts.

“I know, kid, and I'm sorry about that. We'll be on our way soon enough,” says the less fat one, and sure enough, he's putting his notepad away. I said that out loud; I
thought I was getting better about telling the difference. “You just rest up, kid.”

“There was a fire,” I say suddenly, and they pause on their way to the door. “A bonfire.”

“There was,” says the fatter one.

My hands. My fingers aren't bandaged. None of me, except my head.

“A lot of people were burned,” I say slowly.

They policemen look at each other.

“Am I burned?”

The less fat detective twitches; he wants to reach for the notepad, but the other one stops him. “Were you at the party, Micah?”

“I don't know,” I say. I can't, I can't remember.

“Okay, okay, son,” the fatter detective says. His voice is calm again. His hands are up. I take a breath. “Get some rest. We'll talk soon.”

Waldo doesn't have many parties. There aren't really any colleges around, so no one knows how to throw one. People drink in their basements after prom and blast music in earbuds so their parents won't wake up upstairs. Waldo doesn't have big parties, parties people talk about, parties people go to. Parties everyone goes to.